Enticing and Entertaining
August 23, 2017
Inspirational Art, Polymer community news
The art jewelry at these events is also a big draw. There is nothing quite like seeing masterful polymer work in person.
Here is a gorgeous piece by Bonnie Bishoff. She wore it to the final gala event and I just could not stop looking at the delicate forms and sunset-like colors. The picture (and the poor lighting in these places) doesn’t quite do it justice.
Another bonus to coming to these events is the local color. In this case, Sherman Oberson, a board member of the IPCA and a local Pennsylvania resident, treated a small handful of us to a tour of his insanely packed and ever-entertaining collection of flea market and thrift store finds. We did this, in part, to honor Nan Roche whose birthday it was. A huge collector of the curious and visually enticing herself, it was a perfect birthday outing for her and an immensely entertaining evening for those of us who got to tag along.
Poke around on Instagram and Facebook for more on Sherman’s place and other Synergy events.
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A Choir of Angels
June 22, 2017
Inspirational Art
Exploring technique and design doesn’t ever end, or at least I don’t think it should. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been working with a material, there is always more to learn. Barbara McGuire is a true and long standing polymer pioneer who may often return to signature techniques but she keeps expanding on what she has done, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in big leaps.
This collection of beads is one of her subtler explorations. Barbara has been making face canes for ages but she keeps changing up what she does with them. The angelic looking collection here gets its ethereal feel from the use of translucent wings and background cane slices. Past variations were commonly surrounded by opaque slices and balanced or radial backgrounds. The more freeform application here adds to the otherworldly feel of these little angels.
Barbara posts most of her recent work on her Facebook page while her products and news can usually be found on her website.
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Body of Work
June 20, 2017
Inspirational Art
Looking over a collection of work can tell you quite a bit about an artist and what intrigues them. The posts this week will give us a chance to consider, in a more complete and varied way, what an artist might be doing or be after in particular types of work.
Carole Monahan-Kampfe recently posted some rather intriguing pieces in what she refers to as her Steampunk collection but instead of jewelry, it looks like we are seeing a lot of ornaments. We are looking at Swellegant treatments (click the ad link below for more on this fascinating stuff) which make for some very yummy textures but the various shapes and variation on an ornament is what is most captivating about this work.
Although she is calling it steampunk and the influence of that aesthetic is there, many of the common motifs are, gratefully, missing and we can enjoy the exploration of the surface treatment and the manipulation of the ornament forms. I love the negative space in the ones with the floating centers and then those forms that are folding in on themselves which she calls Infinity Orbs. No standard ornament forms here either. Carole actually looks to be taking not the motifs and objects from the Steampunk arena but rather the inventive nature it is supposed to be representative of. Regardless, the choice of shapes and decorative touches are beautiful and more so in a collection like this where the various take on the elements and forms can be compared and contrasted.
The orbs at least, she lists as being made with Makin’s clay which is an air dry clay, rather than polymer but this could all be done with polymer as well of course. Carole just likes to try all kinds of things out as you can see on her Flickr photostream–another method of looking at an artist’s collection of work and over time at that. In this collection though, she seems to have really hit her stride and I hope she keeps playing with these ideas.
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Working on the Inside
June 17, 2017
Inspirational Art
Another way to push the disk element in strung jewelry design is to create designs on those inside surfaces. This might push you to design the disks in such a way as to open up space between them so that the work on the inside could be seen. That might present a bit of a challenge but it will likely present some interesting options for added accents and forms.
Margit Bohmer did just that. Her solution to show off the intricate and highly colorful faces of her disks was to slightly dome them and have them stacked in pairs with the concave sides in, allowing an angled view to all the beautiful color and textures she worked into them. It looks like quite a bit of work too. I just love seeing this kind of dedication and commitment to a piece. Each bead face is different and could stand on its own but all together, they create an engrossing piece that will probably take the owner years to become familiar with all its varied surfaces.
A riot of color and texture is a signature of Margit’s and she never leaves us wanting for more of either. See her latest work on her Flickr photostream.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Choose a basic or commonly used design and push it. By sketching, planning, or just playing with your materials, change the form or the way this basic design is constructed as far as you can until you come up with something that intrigues and excites you then create your own original work from the ideas you came up with.
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The Disk Cubed
June 15, 2017
Inspirational Art
Let’s move on from the ‘ordinary’ disk necklace and really push what these could be. First of all, who says they need to be round? Or strung on their center sitting neatly one on top of the other? Well, no one, that’s who.
Silvia Ortiz de la Torre goes completely off the disk reservation by squaring off the standard disk necklace element and taking full control of their positioning. This necklace is getting so far from a disk that I bet some of you are thinking it’s not a disk necklace at all. And maybe not but the stacking and repetition of form is the same and this is a good example of where an idea might start with some common or basic design and really veer off in very exciting directions, ending in a place barely recognizable from where it started. I don’t know that Silvia started with the idea of disks but she could have. And so can you start from a well used (or over-used) form or basic design and end up somewhere quite different. The thing is, it would have been hard to get to that cool and very original design without that common or basic starting point.
This piece is several years old but Silvia still loves disks and stacking but she is taking things in a very different direction these days. See how she has journeyed from pieces like this to her big intricate disks display in her Flickr photostream and her Etsy shop.
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Disk Arrangements
June 13, 2017
Inspirational Art
Disc beads are fantastic for the complexity they can create just by sheer numbers. They also pull the design away from any one bead and put the focus on how they work together. Employing Skinner blends to create the series of well-arranged colors on this necklace, Spain’s Carmen Morente del Monte, develops a rather striking look with the common stacked disk necklace design as the basis for her composition.
It is not that we haven’t seen quite a few Skinner disc arrangements but this one is rather intriguing with its wide array of colors that still somehow conveys a sense of quiet coherence. I believe that is primarily due to the muted, natural tone of the colors. Their thick spacers subtly echo the surrounding color while their variations trail off to long stacks of warm grays. I think the choice of gray rather than black or white or simply more of the colorful blends for the back half of the bead string is actually what makes this piece work so well. The gray creates a kind of neutral background for the colors to contrast with but the contrast is a gentle one which is also echoed at points in the front beads where the blends go to gray.
I was just having a conversation this weekend about how people steer away from anything well used believing their work won’t be appreciated unless it’s wholly original but how far from the truth that is. Doing something really, really well, even when it has elements seen many times before, is a far bigger and more difficult accomplishment than striving for something purely original. I think this necklace is just such an example.
You can find more of Carmen’s well thought out pieces in her Etsy shop and her Pinterest boards.
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The Many Faces of Glass Beads
June 10, 2017
Inspirational Art
To round out this week’s quick focus on beads, I thought I’d share focal beads in another medium that is very well-known for them–glass.
Glass artists have some very particular and, literally, inflexible limitations and yet they create these extremely intricate and amazing beads. They do get to work with super clear transparency–a characteristic of their medium that they use to great advantage–which is something that is difficult to achieve in polymer, but their forms and patterns are something that, I think, could be a gold mine of inspiration and a jumping off point for ideas in polymer that go beyond the basic and common beads seen in polymer.
Here are just four examples of the intricacy and beauty in glass bead making today. Starting from top left is a bead created by Leah Nietz, top right is Lisa Fletcher, bottom left is Andrea Guarino, and bottom right is Ikuyo Yamanaka. You can click on each artist’s name to reach their shop or website to look further into what they create. You can also immerse yourself in glass focal beads by putting that very phrase into a Pinterest, Google Images, Etsy, Flickr, or even Instagram.
Weekly Inspiration Challenge: Choose your favorite image posting service, such as those just listed above, and enjoy the art and inspiration that comes up when you search for “focal beads”. Choose a couple of images and try to determine what you like best about the bead or beads and then figure out how to recreate those characteristics in polymer. Hopefully that leads you to some original and very fulfilling polymer bead explorations.
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A Bead Cubed
June 8, 2017
Inspirational Art
How about just a little bead beauty from the consistently wonderful Sarah Shriver today while I amble down the road?
Six canes constructed into a cube that is both turned on its side and has had its corner’s tweaked makes for a beautiful simple bead design. Just those two changes to the upright and steady cube has created movement due to its relative instability, facing the world with but one point down, and direction since the slight sweep of the sides slides our eye out to the point of the cube corners and beyond. And let’s not forget the lovely lines of the canes themselves that add to both the movement and directing of the viewers eyes beyond the constrains of the cube.
Apparently, Sarah will be teaching this Celtic cane on the Alaska Polymer Clay Cruise, the “Clayditarod” coming up next month. I was not able to discern if spaces are left for what is certain to be an amazing polymer adventure but you can check out the details and query as needed on the cruise website here. And for more splendid Sarah Shriver work, jump over to her website here.
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Bead Break
June 6, 2017
Inspirational Art
This will be a simple, and hopefully simply delightful, week as I am traveling or in the midst of preparing to travel and will have to be brief. But I have had the idea of the ‘bead’ on my mind. That sounds pretty basic, I know, but for art jewelry, the bead–be it a simple, plain spacer or an extravagant focal piece–is the most common single element created and thus, has a pretty highly esteemed place in the world of adornment. So let’s take a closer look at some very well-considered and lovingly created beads.
These beauties are cane constructed by the ever clever Ivy Niles of iKandi Clay. Canes takes their place on center stage as well as energetically running around the circumference for an intricate and rather mesmerizing look.
If you are partial to either a well-done cane or intricate, take a break to look through Ivy’s her Etsy shop and her website.
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Here is one more day of autumnal translucent beauties. Eva Haskova actually created these last April but they seem an appropriate homage to our quickly fading Fall season.
These bracelets are fairly simple in concept but so intriguing with their gradation of luminous colors and the short open tubes that allow a glimpse of the soft white of their translucent base. The color selection, similar to the piece by Jan Montarsi we saw last week, wisely includes a touch of cool color among all the rich warm hues to balance the intensity of the palette.
Holes and spaces seem to be dominating Eva’s explorations lately. You can see the evidence of this on her Facebook page as well as admire her other work on her Flickr photostream or her website.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Create something in either a completely cool palette or a wholly warm palette. Once you have most of the design planned or executed, try inserting colors of the other temperature. How does that change the feeling of the piece when you add just a little of the opposing color temperature? How about if you add a lot? Play with the contrast until you have something that speaks to you.
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Ok … back to our regularly scheduled program here. Here is a touch more on translucents this week since I started last Monday with a piece that was stated to be “in 3 parts” but got sidetracked the rest of the week. It’s rather hard to not complete the promised trio so here you are.
Here is a most magnificent brooch using translucents to create a visual illusion that will trip you out almost as much as the post-election mayhem. It looks absolutely three-dimensional but also, compounded by the organic placement and directional lean of the cane’s illusion, you could swear these open pod forms are alive. This piece so wonderfully illustrates the illusory possibilities of translucent clays.
The brooch comes from the genius of Melanie West who has been playing around with familiar themes and applications but with some fantastically unexpected results. I know this will get some of your imaginations just reeling but for even more fun and mind bending beauties, take a look at Melanie’s website and her latest creations posted recently on her Facebook page.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Use directional line to create a very intentional sense of movement. Create texture or line up motifs or forms to show strong direction in whatever interests you. If you like orderly, create orderly designs but try it in different orientations to see how it feels. If you want more organic or chaotic movement, be more random. If you want soothing, try flowing line.
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This next issue gets down to a subject most every polymer clayer can get behind. Or on top of really. That being surface design. The subject is a pretty broad one so it was tough deciding just what to put in the issue but we ended up with a very exciting mix of articles. Here is just part of the list:
- The Well Designed Surface
- Raised Surface Coloration
- Unique Surface Variety
- Ink Resist Polymer Painting
- Creating Custom Texture Sheets
- Wall Stories: The Art of Alev Gozonar
- Color Spotlight with Donna Kato
- The Backside of Brooches
- Giving Away the Shop: Pros & Cons of Freebies & Giveaways
- … and much more.
If you need to renew or purchase a subscription, or would like to pre-order your Winter issue, you can go to our website here.
There is much to do so I am off to get this issue together and polished for you. We’ll get back to our regularly scheduled eye candy on Monday!
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Before I talk about this gorgeous mural, I want to ask those of you reading this to bear with me on what has been a bit of hard morning here in the US as I have a small request. But don’t worry, I am not going to get political. I simply want to send out, from my little tiny corner of the world, a message of positivity. It’s a message I think we as artists are particularly capable of sending out in a myriad of effectual ways. I believe this is the only thing worth focusing on right now in what is sure to be an unforgettable time. What about it will be so unforgettable is what I hope you and I can influence.
Last night, Americans saw a shift in our belief in and an understanding of our country and what it stands for. There are a lot of angry, depressed and confused people, not just here in the States but all over the world. Everything I’ve watched and read indicates that the unexpected US presidential election results was primarily a vote against something rather than for something but it has left us in a precarious place. For those of you despairing of the outcome, there are a few things to keep in mind.
The president is not the American people. He is just one person and we are millions. The president is not a dictator and does not have the kind of power to do many of the things Trump has said he would do. So let’s not panic or the panic itself will become part of the problem. Let’s take control of and influence what each of us has access to. And what we have access to, primarily, is our talent and each other.
As artists, writers and creatives in general, we have, collectively, a tremendous amount of influence. The creatives in our world monitor and voice our emotions. They color the atmosphere of our world. And right now, all of you, whether you are an active artist or simply a supportive admirer, can make a difference in how the US moves forward and how the world is effected.
No, we will not be able to shore up stock markets or end bigotry in any kind of immediate and dramatic way but that is not how change actually happens. Change happens in a series of infinitesimally small steps. Like an earthquake, tiny small shifts and pressures build up until the plates cannot stand it any longer and releases the pressure all at once. This is what happened yesterday. We now have the opportunity to create the right kind of change by applying the right kind of pressure in this atmosphere where people are looking for answers. We can be the pressure for positive changes.
So I want to ask everyone reading this to do a very simple thing, something that we all have the power to do and can collectively use to make truly positive changes in what has been, for a while now, a very divided and emotional time, all across the world. I want to encourage you to put out nothing but beauty, compassion, love and positive messages right now. Set aside anger, disappointment, depression and even your fears for the time being in order to do and say kind and positive things.
It is extremely important that negativity not rule the day. So use your network, your influence, your exposure and your creativity to help bolster the atmosphere of our global community. Don’t desert or admonish family or friends for supporting the other candidate or for sitting out the election. Instead support what you believe in with charitable donations, volunteering, vocal support, and your art. Create beautiful things so the world is just that much more lovely a place.
I’ll do my part now by sharing a bit of beauty. This beautiful Starling mural by artists Collin van der Sluijs and Super A is on an apartment building in Berlin. The collaborative work was created for the “One Wall Mural Project”, a project that aims to highlight the diversity of the many neighborhoods of Berlin by enabling artists to create these huge murals, thereby spreading a message of cohesion and beauty throughout the city. Take a look at this post on Colossal to see it in more detail. It is amazing.
It’s too bad we can’t all create 137 foot tall murals to be seen by thousands of people daily, sharing beauty and inspiring others along the way. But we can do our small part to contribute to a positive solution rooted in love for everyone. Will you join me?
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Select a piece of your artwork and give it to someone who could use a little more beauty today. Do this for them and for yourself. Being kind and charitable will enrich your day as well as the day of the person you gift the art too and, hopefully, that has a rippling effect through many, many people.
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After finding the beautiful textured glass for Friday’s post, I noticed that my folder of art work to consider for blogs was full of translucent pieces, and almost all of them in the same basic color palette and all of them are fairly recent shares on Facebook. It could be because of the season but I don’t know how relevant that becomes when you set them side by side. So I thought I’d basically do that, presenting three pieces that are similar in color and using translucent clay but we’ll look at how it is used to create different moods.
This first one is a set of earrings by Jan Montarsi. The autumnal palette is there but the primarily vertical composition of the set, both in the direction of the swathes of color and the stacked squares lean towards a strong, organized atmosphere. Until you get to the visual and tactile texture. That reminds me of an energetic kid in a sandbox digging hole after hole. The circular shapes are jauntily wonky with colors blurring into each other, all with a very natural and organic feel. It says “I keep on the path but like to dance a bit on the way.” Well, that’s my read.
Jan created these in a class taught by Marie Segal at the annual Kentucky/Tennessee guild retreat this last month. He used his own ‘organic’ extruded cane technique as well. I guess he expected the colors to come out more muted because in the comments he made this observation:
“The amazing thing is the colors of these translucent clays were diluted by at least half with regular translucent clay and then placed on a translucent background and the color is still vibrant.” It’s good to know just how rich those packaged translucent colors can be.
Jan is our Americas Regional President for the International Polymer Clay Association as well as being an active clayer and contributor to a variety of information and educational outlets including The Polymer Arts magazine. His work can be found on Facebook and on Flickr.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Pick a set of colors and then pick forms that seem quite disparate from the color palette you picked. Light and bright colors combined with severely geometric shapes or dark, rich colors with light hearted squiggles. What does the contrast in shape do to the mood of the colors and vice versa? What can you add in terms of texture, line, or motifs that will further illustrate the mood you see within that juxtaposition of disparate elements?
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Here is a little more autumn color for the week. I think this is a brooch although it doesn’t say. I did have something else in mind from the ever-exploring Sabine Spiesser but then I alighted upon this little experiment while enjoying her Flickr photos and a couple of things about it caught my eye.
I find this interesting not only because it’s a faux textured glass technique and yummy colors but also because of a comment Sabine made in regards to it:
“Unfortunately I noticed that alcohol inks fade in bright light in Pardo clay. I left an old piece in a bright spot where it gets some sunshine and after about 4 months all colours except for red were gone. That was quite a shock. I have to rethink what I am doing.”
It makes me wonder if this is just a problem with Pardo, or all translucents or alcohol inks in general. I’m going to do some research and then my own tests. I’ll post my results in our newsletter, where all such tips usually land in my world. If you aren’t on our twice monthly newsletter list, you’re missing out on tips, community news, first sales announcements, and some of our magazine news. You can sign up on the left hand side of our website’s home page. In the meantime, enjoy a view of Sabine’s work on her Flickr pages and website.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Try something different with a faux technique you like to do. If it’s faux stone, create forms you don’t usually see them in or texture them in a way that would be near impossible in a real stone. If it’s metal, create something organic-looking, like a silver flower or a copper pod. Just because we can mimic nature’s material doesn’t mean we need to recreate it only in the forms that nature presents it. Let go and try something different.
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Although fall colors in the changing trees is nearly over, I wanted to take a bow to my favorite color season with a couple beautiful pieces this week.
This necklace inspired several ideas for themes for the blog but in the end, I knew it was the color that is the real draw. I do love how the overlapping rough edges are mirrored in the cord strands but the rich colors of autumn are what pushes it beyond a clever bit of line repetition into a very elegant piece.
Craft artist Tatiana Saveliev is fond of using the rough edged look, stacked up or wound in circular patterns and almost always in a simple geometric form such as squares and circles. The uneven edges soften the feel of the symmetrical geometry while the lines impart energy. Her colors go from light and bright to deep and rich but this palette is my personal favorite.
You can see the various directions Tatiana takes this look by jumping over to her LiveMaster shop.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Try some seasonal color. What are you seeing outside today? Red, rusts, and yellow? Just blue sky and bare gray branches? Maybe green ocean and the pale buff color of sand? Create a palette from what you see, not trying to be too exact. Just let the colors of the day inspire you and create in these colors.
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I love Halloween. So much of it is about imagination and creativity in how we celebrate it. I also like that there is a day we recognize what scares us and face the darker things in life because the shadows in our world are what makes us see the bright times for the blessings that they are. And Halloween is just so darn fun!
So is this guy: Rich Webber. I need to thank Anke Humpert for bringing his work to my attention. I am not sure most or any of his work is created in polymer clay but it really doesn’t matter. It’s the artist’s imagination and humor that makes the colorful clay come alive. Enjoy this collection of his playful and sometimes morbid creatures but do jump over to his Instagram page or watch some Shaun the Sheep TV shows or the movies to see his directorial work or DC’s Worlds Funnest episodes for which he was the creator.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Go enjoy the holiday. Do something fun and silly and enjoy your child side!
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So there has been a bit of rain here in Southern California which I am very much enjoying. After years of Colorado weather, which constantly changes and rain is common albeit brief all summer into fall, I really appreciate what relatively few storms we get here on the south-west coast. So to wrap up my intense color week, I thought I’d pull out a kind of guilty favorite in my list of contemporary artists whom I admire, with this after the rain scene.
I say guilty because a part of me rallies against the level of commercialism this painter, Leonid Afremov, has achieved but the other hand, he makes a good living off it so who am I to knock that? And the work is beautiful to look at. His scenes are so intensely colorful and have so much energy. He commonly does rain or damp weather scenes which naturally have brighter colors and lots of reflected light. His choices tap into our strong reaction and attraction to saturated color as well as bright and shiny images and he does so without being garish. You have to admire that.
Leonid may not be communicating a particularly deep message and isn’t making any social or political statements but his paintings deserve notice because of the simple fact that he knows what we gravitate to. I think that is actually more in line with most craft art than other approaches in what is called ‘fine’ or ‘modern’ art. Craft tends towards showing us beauty more so than having a message and I think that is a very important and admirable. Make someone smile or sigh happily and you have done the whole world a great service.
See more of Leonid’s work on his website and Facebook page.
Inspirational Challenge of the Day: Take a break from creating and take time to just admire beauty. What is beautiful to you? If you can get out to some galleries or a museum and just take in what catches your eye, without any self-judgement as to the sophistication of your choices. If what you see inspires you, sketch or write out ideas to go over later in the studio.
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